The BPS Qualifications in Test Use

To ensure that professionals using tests are appropriately qualified, the BPS has developed qualification standards defining the knowledge and skills that should be held by anybody using a psychological test.

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The CAL consists of a large number of scales designed to cover a broad range of personality constructs and a number of values or motivational factors in the occupational setting. The range is likely to grow as further scales are added. The reviewed materials included 46 of these scales targeted at employees in various functions including clerical, sales and managerial. A distinctive feature of the Criterion Attribute Library is that it allows the individual scales that make up the Library to be combined in any number of different ways to provide measures that focus on particular occupational fields (e.g. sales or managerial), particular aspects of personality (e.g. temperament), or that represent particular clusters of scales relevant to specific client competencies (in bespoke versions).

The scales that make up the Library are grouped under a number of more general headings as shown below:

These new general headings are also described using the metaphor of the four elements. Interpersonal style is represented by the element water, the element Earth represents Thinking Style, the element Air represents Emotional Style and finally the element fire represents both Motivation and Culture fit.

The scales have been defined rationally rather than through any factor analytic process and are identified as representing occupationally relevant, narrow constructs. Depending upon the variant used, the standard versions of the questionnaire allow identification of styles, preferences and values on anything from nine scales (the Emotional Style Questionnaire) to 30 scales (the Management Questionnaire). Each scale is measured by 12 items which are rated on a five-point scale from Strongly Agree through In Between to Strongly Disagree. The number of questions in any one variant therefore varies regularly as a function of the number of scales; for example, the Management Questionnaire consists of 360 items. Scale scores are computed and represented on a Sten-based profile chart specific to the variant employed. These profile charts incorporate the raw score range for each Sten of the relevant norm group.